SSX Survive Mode Has ‘Procedurally Generated’ Avalanches

“Think of survive almost like boss battles, but it’s you versus the mountain,” producer Sean Smillie said in an interview with NowGamer.

“The prime example we’re using at the moment is avalanche, so when you’re riding down the mountain you could cut left across the mountain and it would trigger an avalanche, but if I’m riding down the mountain and cut right it wouldn’t trigger an avalanche, so you never know where it’s going to start.”

Smillie confirmed that avalanches are procedurally generated.

“In some of the tracks where we have avalanches it literally is as if you’re going too fast left it will start an avalanche and if you’re going too slow it won’t. One of the big things we look at is the real-life triggers of avalanches, I do a lot of back country riding and if you go slow enough across the mountain nothing will happen, but if you just cut straight across it will go. So we’re throwing a lot of variables in there, which is taking a lot of tuning to figure out – and it’s driving our QA guys crazy.”

Avalanches are just one part of the Survive mode. “Outrunning the avalanche is pretty much the coolest thing I’ve seen so far,” Smillie added. “You’ve got inverted controls and looking at it from way across the valley and your character is riding down the avalanche as it charges down the mountain.”